Polton, Lasswade, Midlothian: designs for the enlargement of the house for Mrs Anne Calderwood Durham, 1788 (1)

1788

Anne Calderwood Durham was the daughter of the noted diarist, Margaret Calderwood (1715-74) for whom Adam designed a funerary monument in 1774, and her husband Thomas Calderwood (d.1773) of Polton, Lasswade, near Edinburgh. Thomas had subscribed to The ruins of the palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia (1764), and therefore the family was familiar with Adam. The Polton estate was inherited first by Anne’s brother Lieutenant-Colonel William Calderwood (d1787), and then by Anne herself, upon which she seems to have immediately commissioned Adam to enlarge and Georgianise the house. Despite this commission it is not clear whether Polton was the family's principal residence. Anne had married James Durham, and gave birth to her son, Philip Charles (1763-1845), in Largo, Fife. He later became a naval hero of the Napoleonic Wars, who appears to have inherited the Polton estate from his mother as he is described on his funerary monument in Largo as Sir Philip Charles Henderson Calderwood Durham of Fordell, Polton and Largo.

See also: Unknown location: Monument to Mrs Margaret Calderwood

Literature:A.T. Bolton, The architecture of Robert and James Adam, 1922, Volume II, Index pp. 26, 65